Chesco district judge resigns after new criminal charges filed

WEST CHESTER — District Magisterial Judge Rita Arnold was charged with two criminal offenses Tuesday dealing with her alleged improper treatment of a summary citation involving her son, a move that led her to resign the judicial seat she has held since 1994.

Arnold — looking drawn and weary during a brief preliminary arraignment before Common Pleas Court Judge Mark Tunnell and wearing a grey pantsuit — said virtually nothing as the judge read the charges against her and informed her of legal rights that — as Tunnell noted — she was “so familiar with.”

She was charged with one count of tampering with records or identification, a first-degree misdemeanor, and one count of obstruction of administration of law or other government function, a second-degree misdemeanor. The first offense carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $10,000 fine and the second a maximum of two years in prison and a $5,000 fine, although Arnold is unlikely to face either maximum penalty.

The charges brought by the state Attorney General’s Office accuse Arnold of intentionally obstructing the law by failing to properly perform her duty as an elected magisterial judge, and for concealing records pertaining to wrongdoing. Arnold last year admitted that she delayed docketing a summary harassment citation against her son, Forrest Solomon Jr., and then lying to investigators about what had happened with the citation.

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Following her arraignment Tuesday, Arnold was taken to the Chester County Sheriff’s Office in the county Justice Center, where she was fingerprinted and photographed. She was released on her own recognizance.

Arnold’s attorney, Heidi F. Eakin of the Lemoyne firm of Costopoulos, Foster & Fields, told Tunnell that Arnold, 56, of West Bradford, had tendered her resignation to President Judge James P. MacElree II shortly after 2 p.m. Tuesday. Eakin, who previously represented Arnold in her disciplinary hearing before the state Court of Judicial Discipline, indicated that Arnold planned to waive a preliminary hearing next week, perhaps moving toward a non-trial disposition of the case against her.

Eakin told Tunnell that Arnold was technically still under supervision by the Court of Judicial Discipline, which last July ordered her suspended for one month without pay and placed on two years’ probation. She had to report to the court every other month.

Arnold left the courthouse without comment. As a condition of her bail, she is forbidden from having any contact with current or former court or county employees in regards to the facts of her case. The only reason she can contact them is to secure character letters that would be used in any future sentencing hearing, Eakin told Tunnell.

Presenting the case against Arnold was Senior Deputy Attorney General Susan DiGiacomo, a former prosecutor in the county District Attorney’s Office. Neither she nor Eakin made any comment on the charges against Arnold themselves; however, the charges closely mirror the accusations brought against Arnold last year by the state Judicial Conduct Board.

According to the criminal affidavit signed by Special Agent Daniel Block of the attorney general’s office, the case began on Jan. 19, 2010, when state police were called to Arnold’s home for the report of a domestic altercation between Solomon and her other son, Jonathan Arnold.

The state trooper who responded, Lauren Long, cited Solomon with a summary violation for harassment. The trooper filed it in Arnold’s court the following morning, since the offense took place in her jurisdiction.

According to Block, on Jan. 20, 2010, Arnold called state police Sgt. Brandon Daniels regarding the citation, asking why it had been filed and that the incident occurred with “my son and my house.” Daniels reviewed the matter, later finding the citation returned from the district court to him. He called Arnold and told her that it had been properly issued and that he was returning it to court for proper processing.

According to Block, Arnold told Daniels that Solomon was on probation and “something as simple as this could really mess him up.” In fact, he was awaiting a probation violation hearing for having failed a drug test on Jan. 6, 2010.

Although Daniels retuned the citation to Arnold’s court, it was not docketed, the affidavit states.

On Feb. 15, 2010, Arnold gave the citation to a court employee identified in the affidavit as court employee No. 2 and told her to “hold on to this” until she told her to docket it. She told the employee that she was uncertain what impact the citation, if known about, would have on Solomon’s probation status. The court employee did as she was told, and later reminded Arnold that it had not yet been docketed.

The court employee was identified in the disciplinary proceeding against Arnold as her office manager, Patricia Davis.

On March 15, Long told Daniels that nothing had happened with her citation and Daniels called the court to determine its status. Arnold told him that the court was backlogged and the citation would be docketed “any day,” the affidavit states. Meanwhile, Solomon had missed probation meetings and eventually entered rehab for a drug problem,

On April 5, 2010, Arnold asked court employee No. 2 for the citation, which she had kept and docketed it. However, she also asked the employee to transfer the case to District Magisterial Judge Mark Bruno of West Chester, ordering her to walk the paperwork to Bruno’s court and give it to a specific clerk.

In doing so, the affidavit states, she did not follow proper court procedure and inform MacElree that she was recusing herself.

Arnold called Bruno’s court on April 7, 2010, and told personnel there that Solomon was in a rehab program. A hearing on the citation was set for June 2, 2010. When Solomon appeared, he told Bruno he had completed his rehab program. Jonathan Arnold, although notified of the hearing, did not appear, and Bruno dismissed the citation.

The electronic case docket reflects the person who dismissed the citation as “RARNOLD,” Arnold’s user name. It also lists Solomon as a black woman with a different date of birth than Arnold’s son.

During a routine report by the county Court Administrator’s Office, the irregularities in the handling of the citation were uncovered, Block wrote. When asked by MacElree to prepare a written explanation for what had happened with the citation, Arnold blamed the irregularities on problems her court had with being closed because of noxious fumes in the building. She wrote that she had boxed the citation up for a move, and then forgot about it until unpacking the boxes in April.

Court administration, however, found that all of the citations filed with Arnold’s court on Feb. 8, 2010, as Solomon’s was, were docketed before Feb. 23, 2010.

The matter was then sent to the state Judicial Conduct Board for investigation. In a sworn deposition, Arnold testified that she called Daniels as a “concerned Mom” prior to knowing about the citation. She also testified that the citation remained on her desk from Jan. 20, 2010, until she boxed it up on Feb. 10, 2010 for a move from the court. She said that when she went looking for the citation to docket it at Daniels’ request, she could not find it until April 5, 2010.